Hot Oil & Dirty Feathers
by borderlandtvshow
Summary: 1,000 word story challenge. Tony POV.


There's fury in her eyes. All I want to do is take away the suffocating idea punishing her; day in and day out, it's an enigma.

She falls away from me. Again. I thought it would be over after Shiva. So, she runs away to another man for but a night and yet it sticks to me like hot oil and dirty feathers. I get angry, grit my teeth and walk away from her this time.

She comes to my apartment, it's definitely midnight on a Wednesday. I remember so vividly because I set my alarm for 5 and I remembered I was supposed to catch the coffee for McGee in the morning. One full city roast, a medium blonde, and a full French. Like clockwork, I was supposed to do my homework, take a shower, and go to bed. But, she knocks on my door. I open it expecting anyone else, but nope, she's there, standing in front of me with a navy P-coat on, workout pants, and her laced trainers.

We make up. No, she makes it up to me. Before you think "oh, yeah, DiNozzo, you got it on with her", no. I did not. She made her way through the apology without angrily demolishing herself. Apologies to me and one apology from me. Maybe I wasn't clear enough in my send-off that one night before Mrs. Vance's funeral. How else was I supposed to say it? Was I supposed to hug her and say very indiscreetly: I want to be with you, Ziva. "You're not alone", wasn't that enough? At. Lo. Levad. You. No. Alone.

* * *

She was the best friend I never was able to have. Of course, I had my old frat boys and the basketball nerds. But, Ziva, she was everything I needed wrapped up into one woman.

When I met her she asked me if I was having phone sex. She was not a lady I would call shy or fond of manners. She takes bites of my food without my permission, not completely by the book, uses flirtation as a weapon, and maybe lesbian? I don't know, she teases and jokes around. She's one of the guys.

Then, it hits me. She's Mossad. She acts. She goofs, but is it really her? Who is she?

She becomes more Americanized and fixes her hair and puts on a little make-up. One year becomes 2 years and I fall in love with a trifecta of 'wrongs': wrong reason, wrong time, wrong woman.

2 years becomes 4 years. She runs away again, but not before pushing me to the ground in a rage for killing her Mossad boyfriend.

NCIS rescues her. Not Mossad. Not Israel. Not her own father. We. Me. I. The Americans.

She's shut off. Blood on her face, beaten, tortured. She's not fighting anymore when Saleem forces her down into that chair in front of me. McGee playing 'coma patient' on the dirt floor behind her. It's like skin has been ripped off of her as she was forced to grow a new one.

Even the strongest fall. She told me later on, when the wounds had healed, that _it isn't if the toughest break, it is a matter of when._

4 years become 8 years. And she flies away. It was supposed to be temporary. A safe bet she would come back to NCIS, just like the rest of us. That was the plan.

Well, it was supposed to be the plan…

So I find her after months of trekking, trying to catch up with her footsteps. They are all but ghosts in the Mediterranean. I knew she was there, but everywhere I looked, I was one step behind. I look into the past. And I find her. But I was just too damn late. Her mind is set on penance and reparation for whatever damage she believes she had caused.

I kiss her on the tarmac. I gave away my heart that night. I still wonder how I managed to live three years without it.

* * *

8 years with her turn to 3 years without her. April turn to May; a gray-zone births fire.

I saw it on the monitor, my absent heart melts and freezes all in one moment. My hands shake and the only way to stop them from falling off is holding onto what I have left of her. The gold-plated Star of David in my top desk drawer. Memories of her and everything she was rushes through me.

 _Toda._

 _Prego._

All the words I never said. All the times I wanted to consume her but I held back. Feelings that never had a chance to bloom out from their dusty bottles in their old cabinets. Hidden.

It was never supposed to be like this.

It was never supposed to end like this.

Maybe it didn't.

* * *

In less than 72 hours I had lost everything and gained a new everything.

Her name is everything.

At first I'm shocked. I'm in denial. I'm frustrated. I'm happy. I'm disappointed. I'm…okay. I'm going to be okay.

When I go through her go-bag and I see her parents, Ziva and I, in that mono-tone Paris photograph, everything becomes clearer. Suddenly, I see it all 10 tones lighter, navy blues turn to royal vibrancy and the burgundies transform to corals, crimsons, and scarlets.

* * *

At the heart of madness, there's bliss in imperfection.

As a former federal agent, I dwelt in the normalcy of sorrow. Do the dirty work everyone's afraid to see. The mothers who die too soon, the fathers who kill for a quick buck, and the children who are the definition of "collateral damage."

 _But I'm done now._

You've heard that metaphor about a cook in a kitchen, while you're asleep. I heard something like that in reference to God.

* * *

It's almost Christmas, Paris in the 12th district; quiet but not too quiet. Peaceful but effervescent.

The basket of truth find us. It's undoubtedly like us.

Just the three of us.


End file.
